The notorious Al-Mukmin Muslim boarding school, or pesantren, held over the weekend a seminar designed to improve its image and educate the ignorant on the true meaning of jihad. The school, founded by terror suspect Abu Bakar Ba'asyir has the dubious honour of being the alma mater of a string of convicted terrorists and wanted men.

A group of villagers in west Java, who are on a hunger strike over the positioning of high-voltage power lines near their houses, have had the fear of hellfire put into them by the West Java Indonesian Ulema Council which issued an edict condemning hunger strikes as sinful in Islam.

Mohamad Abdun Nasir, a lecturer and researcher in the Mediation Center at the State Institute for Islamic Studies (IAIN) in Mataram, Lombok, writes in the Jakarta Post (I would link to the article but Jakarta Post pages go awol after two days) about moderate Islam in Indonesia. He first posits two dangers, radicalism on the one hand, and liberalism on the other.